Monday, December 26, 2011

Speaking of Asians, the third installment of the Brew Ha Hey Ho will be happening on 1/21. You have to RSVP for the location. It's real easy.

Finally got to hang out with the Doodle Day crew over at New Wave Cafe in Logan Square. I whipped out this little ditty and got free chocolate cr0issants son! This happens every week and everyone is invited to participate. You better step your joke game up because some of these guys are ruthless, but in a nice way?

Cool people come back home and realize why they left in the first place. Linda has always been supportive of anything creative and just so freaking nice and laid back. It's a shame when we lose people like this but have so many Michigan douchebags stay. I also believe that her and her friends were the first people to wear cool glasses before cool glasses were cool. I wanted to take more photos of the bar, but the lesbians in the back were already giving my brother and I the stink eye cause they wanted to defile Linda. They were in desperate need of a Sybian.

Djed at Swig with Pickel. I wish this was the dj booth instead of the pisser. This bathroom also makes me think I should break out the heroine or crack pipe.

Went by Shoe's Pub over in Lincoln Park Xmas eve to meet up with the Xmarx gang. Here they are in all their glorious holiday drinking mode.

What kind of fucking anchor hooks did they use to hang this shit? Thats some next level shit. Fuck your hand screened print poster of a dancing hipster robot, hang a motorbike instead pussy.

This is definitely a hidden gem in an otherwise yuppy douchehole of a neighborhood. Chicago oriented and a no frills/bullshit environment.

It may be the Japanese rocker bartender that make the bar what it is. Karen here swore like a pirate, called us stupid, and talked about Asian traditions all in one conversation. You can't pay for service like this. She also ordered pizza for us. So a Chinese, Japanese, and Korean walk into a bar...

Gave the nephew his Christmas present and immediately was enthralled with the magic of free shit. This is why being a baby is the shit. This is the only time in your life where being pantless, laying on a kitchen floor playing with a toy is normal. Can you imagine catching an adult doing this? Just so wrong.

Christmas Eve felt like any other day to me so I started doing some work to fill the void that is merriment and other holiday bullshit. Am I the only person that felt like Christmas was just kinda blah this year?

Stopped by the homie Joe Tallarico's house for his 30th birthday where I would make pot stickers for caucasians. Joe is way more AZN/Korean that I am made more evident by this toy collection. I get the suspicion that if there was world destruction imminent, Joe would only save these toys and his records over food and clothing. This is what Asian porn looks like. Awkward and full of costumes and of course BUKKAAKKKKEEEE!!!!!

The homie Jesse planned an age old Jewish tradition of a Chinese Christmas dinner. This dude was making noodles from scratch, I just wish those annoying bubble tea pictures framed this ancient tradition in action.

Chinatown was poppin son! It was like Jerusalem Skokie up in this bitch. Goldbergs, Silversteins, and Cohens all over the place and some Yang's, Lee's, and Lo's mixed in.

Arrived a little early so I walked around and came across what I dubbed as a "ching chong" candy shop.

The sweaty fat kid in me came out in full force amidst all of this awesome gummy candy. Overwhelmed with joy, I just went for it and started shoving candy in a bag drooling and calming down my boner at the same time.

This was along the perimeter of the candy store. I don't give a fuck what y'all say, this shit right here is the best beer snack hands down. This makes pretzels and chips look like little bitches.

We all met up at Lao Beijing, a Tony Hu joint that is basically an identical twin to what made him famous Lao Sze Chuan. I think he has like sixteen restaurants all starting with the word "Lao," meaning $$$.

So there are fifteen of us in a small room on the second floor where all of the beer and wine is stored. We were greeted warmly with classic styrofoam plates.

It was quite the motley crew of awesome company, some involved with the food industry and some just celebrating chinukkah.

To avoid confusion and chaos, Tarin had the bright idea of writing the order on the table. Only to find out that we can only order by numbers. This is like just one of ten things that was awesomely wrong with dinner.

The food was outstanding though. Everything we had was tasty, surprisingly light and fucking riceless. The rice didn't come until the meal was 2/3 of the way over. We didn't get water until the end of the meal, we were using towels from the bathroom for napkins, passed around a bag for throwing away the plates, got drink orders wrong, two female guests getting propositioned by a 15 year old Chinese boy, but I wouldn't have wanted this dinner to go any other way. It had all the elements of any Christmas dinner complete with hilarious family members and delicious food.

Wanting that awkward warm fuzzy Christmas feeling to last forever, Pickel and I went on a little all city crawl from Chinatown to Longman and Eagle, to Five Star, and ending our night at Nick's Uptown.

This place is fucking huge! Felt like I was in a rec center in a park. Just a giant home for yuppies and assholes to do what yuppies and assholes do. However $2 any beers is always going to be a winner in my book.

One bad thing about drinking = making terrible decisions like buying cold pizza from a random stranger and then placing said pizza on top of a germ filled bar.

Christmas was awesome this year. It's always a good time to see people come back into town all jolly and shit. Looking forward to 2012 already and ready to get everything on.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Nothing like ending a work day with seeing a drunk Santa Claus handing out gifts to even drunker patrons at a bar. I can't complain though cause I got a wicked Hoegaarden shirt. I also pulled out a pretty gnarly thorn out of my thumb this night...how'd it get in there? Only Santa, the donkey, Mexican and I will know.

I was bestowed the honor of cooking for Tooch and Steff's 2 yr. anniversary dinner. Romance has hit the fan with a remote control on the table and Tooch's version of a tuxedo. Well at least there was a candle?

It was a French inspired 4 course menu consisting of some heavy proteins including beautifully seared duck breasts. These tits don't come cheap though.

Those quack boobs didn't go through nearly as much as this vanilla parsnip puree that got roasted, poached in butter and then pureed with whole milk.

So, I kind of put the gout on hiatus once Tooch whipped out some heaters including this years BCS from Goose Island.

This sour beer made me remember how good beer can be. Tart, not overly sweet, and just well balanced. Knowing Jolly Pumpkin beers, The rest of this 4 or 6 pack probably all tasted different.

Continuing the sour journey, this beer was pretty tasty. It made my foot tingle with anticipation of pain to come.

Definitely not worth risking my gout over. Disappointing all around.

I don't understand some breweries that come out with series of beers all meant to be aged over years and years. I wish they can brew beer good enough to drink from the beginning. The Bruery is brewing beer to be released every year in tune to the song "12 Days of Christmas." I'm not waiting 12 fucking years to try each verse from the song. Case and point, this beer was pretty good for a Christmas style ale, but beer enthusiasts will all chime in and say "it'll be better in a year or two." Fuck that, get me six shots of whiskey so I can get fucked up now. I just hope that the "5 Golden Rings" won't be brewed with any kind of urine.

This brewery makes going up North to Wisconsin worth it. Always a solid choice from the very drinkable Spotted Cow to this Cranbic, its always a pretty solid choice.

This was a rare treat - The Dark Apparition from Jackie O in a smuggled growler. You can smell the fat sweat from the beer nerd that was able to obtain this. Almost as if we still lived in the Prohibition Era. Dark, Roasty, Smokey - delicious. I don't think Jackie O has brewed anything bad. Pretty rare to always come out with heavy hitters that are equally delicious and rare.

It's been a while alcohol. I miss how you make me feel - like an idiot.

It also makes me eat things I wouldn't normally eat like this dessert creation over at Longman and Eagle. I forgot what this was supposed to mimic but the bacon ice cream on top was fucking delicious. Smokey, salty, rich...my shit definitely looked weird the next morning.

No pictures from Saturday as I did absolutely nothing in fear of my foot exploding and nursing a hangover. It's been a while since booze and I got along and the hangover made me realize why. Sunday was time for the Holiday Art Bazaar thing over at Simones in Pilsen.

A last minute art sale with creative types hocking small wares and artsy gifts. It was a mellow time and a chance to catch up with some old friends.

Joey Potts making Oscar Fotoflow feel uncomfortable. Joey had the crotch of his jeans cut out and kept doing hug handshakes. It was really awkward.

These are some rude fucking treats. Nathan West had a lot of cool shit on hand complete with a prop 100lb. type writer on display. Gotta hand it to him though because he biffed with type writer in tow and his groin took all of the impact. This is why cups were invented.Gotta thank the homie Andrea for helping me out with the anni dinner. Congrats to Tooch and Steff. Thanks for the onslaught of beers that'll inevitably make my foot the size of a baby beluga, but its all worth it.

Monday, December 12, 2011

The post is short because I didn't have time to take a lot of pictures during work and my phone does this annoying thing where the shutter takes a long time to open so it makes me look like an idiot standing there with my phone pointed at something.

I worked a mini shift over at Avec for shits and giggles. The homie Jesse is a veteran in the restaurant world and kills it on the line here. This magical entry makes vegetarians wish they ate meat...in which case a massive bowel movement would follow soon after.

These are caricatures of the staff and judging by the illustration of the eyes, they're all Asian except for the carefully drawn white devil eyes.

Make that shit tight!

RIP Soundwave and yes that is a Campbell's "soup in hand" right next to the speaker.

Went upstairs after prep was done to check out the action and ingredient run for these fools. The size of the kitchen is the size of my left testicle - TIGHT. In a space that should only have one person, three people handle all the orders of the night. I felt bad for the cook who's first night on the line was this night - she was a hot fucking mess. Her face looked like she was ready to die, fuck, puke,and shit all at once. It was magical.

Jesse was in the middle slangin them fancy flatbread/pizza thangs and in control and feeding me on the side like the stray yellow dog that I am.

I will say the one thing good about fuck ups is that you get to eat them.

Worked a 12 hour day at the Whole where I had taken another attempt at baking. It wasn't too bad except the cookies looked discs of shit because of all the stuff I put in it to make them "different." I don't know why baking is so hard for me, but I do know that I fucking hate it. Anywho, the homie Josh called for help cooking at a private gig in Deerfield for a good sum of cheddar. Went to an Eastern European deli called "SHTRAM" which looks like Shitram in Wheeling.

It was awesome. Just all kinds of weird Euro shit from candies to animal organs without the shitty Techno music that they love for some reason. I love this shady alley dining room they created for diners who want to feel like they're eating in a sex slave rec room.

This was the only picture taken during the party because I didn't want to look like the thief taking pictures of things that I was gonna steal. The house was fucking huge, the kind of huge with probably 10 bathrooms. I was taking dumps in what was seriously a closet bathroom that was nicer than my whole apartment.

For how nice and ritzy everything was, I thought this was pretty retarded looking for some reason.

Another Sunday, another group of dudes watching millionaires play football and complaining.